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Fitchburg council OKs most of supplemental budget

By Alana Melanson, amelanson@sentinelandenterprise.com

Updated:
07/29/2014 09:57:07 PM EDT

FITCHBURG -- The City Council approved all but one piece of Mayor Lisa Wong's supplemental budget, asking that $21,475 requested for an information-technology employee be used instead for police overtime for Main Street foot patrols.

The remainder of the approved $129,300 supplemental budget included:

* $25,000 to conduct audits of the purchasing, legal and IT departments

* $10,000 for a temporary mayoral aide to replace an employee about to go on leave

* $73,800 for three new police officers

* $10,500 to send the new officers for police academy training

* $10,000 for Community Development Department marketing expenses

IT Director Trevor Bonilla had requested during the budget sessions that a part-time IT help-desk employee be increased to full time to better address IT needs. But councilors declined to fund the full-time position then and requested an audit of the department to determine whether it was truly needed.

Council President Stephan Hay said Wong's request to make that employee full time to address Police Department IT needs "is a way of subverting what this council did in June."

Councilor-at-Large Marcus DiNatale agreed, calling it "a backdoor way to get what we didn't get two months ago."

"What better way to push through an item that was rejected during the budget process than to have it tied to the police?" he said.

DiNatale asked that the money be used instead for police overtime foot patrols in the downtown.

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He also said the hiring of new police officers was made possible due to budget cuts made by councilors, and he believes the city can afford to hire more than three officers with existing funds.

Councilor-at-Large David Clark was the one vote in opposition to the budget, because it excluded the IT funds.

"I just think that we are so far behind in our IT needs, that this has to happen yesterday," he said.

Hay agreed the city is behind in IT, but said it means Wong should conduct the audit as soon as possible so councilors can make a decision based on its findings.

Ward 3 Councilor Joel Kaddy said he supports hiring the three new officers, especially because it means two officers will be devoted to Main Street, but said the city can't wait the year it will take to get those officers trained and on the street to begin addressing problems in the "out-of-control" downtown. He recounted a scene he saw unfold recently in which a group of prostitutes was yelling and banging on a drug dealer's door, eager to get their fix.

"We need a short-term plan to make Main Street safe and make the people that live on Main Street and do business on Main Street and have businesses on Main Street understand that our municipal government is supporting them, that we're not going to let this happen to them," Kaddy said.

"I wasn't afraid that day, but I would venture to say that there were people, that if they were standing there, probably wouldn't come back if they knew really what was going on that day," he added.

Wong said the Police Department has plenty of overtime funds only a month into the fiscal year, and that she spoke with acting Police Chief Phil Kearns to try to make that funding available now for Main Street patrols.

"We can afford to do it now, just with the anticipation that the ask might be a little bit larger in September," she said, in order to have overtime funds in place for the rest of the fiscal year.

Kearns said that since he became chief in April, he has tried to send officers to patrol Main Street for between four and eight hours per day on weekdays, mainly in the 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. time block. He said that collaboration with the State Police Gang Unit has also allowed the department to occasionally put a plainclothes officer in the downtown to address crime there.

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